Ashes
by EmmaFine
Summary: What if the witch wasn't the only being with dark magic? What if some slippers are the only ones who can stop it?
1. Chapter 1

"I can _do_ this," DG mumbled to herself as closed her eyes and tried her hardest to let her light flow through her.

"You can do it, DG. Just let your light flow through you," said Tutor encouragingly. DG grimaced.

Since her return nearly a month ago, DG had traveled across the Outer Zone and back, jumped over a cliff, zip lined across a valley almost as big the Grand Canyon, defeated an evil witch who was possessing her sister, found that the people she had always assumed were he parents were, in fact, robots and her real parents were the monarchs of a country in another dimension. As soon as that was over, she found herself whisked away to princess and magic lessons. It's all rather anti-climatic, really.

Princess lessons became the bane of DG's existence. Her dear friend Glitch had taught her what he could remember from before he had his brain removed, and her sister Azkadellia helped him fill in the spaces. She appreciated them, really, but she didn't understand why "sit up, don't slurp, and don't talk around your food" deserved its own lessons. She just went along with it after she found the noticeable lift in Az's mood when she could do something that didn't remind her of the past fifteen annuals.

The magic lessons, on the other hand, seemed to start where they had ended, and it's hard for a girl to get back in the habit after a fifteen-year break when she had no idea magic was even real. But nevertheless, Tutor was hired as her, well, tutor. Once she mastered the art of making a doll twirl, Tutor took her to the library where he stacked five prehistoric books at the edge of a table and backed her up about eighteen feet away and told her to find where each book belonged and replace them. Unfortunately for DG, the OZ did not have a Dewey decimal system. She would have to use her misbehaving magic to do this.

"Why isn't this working?" DG opened her eyes and put her hands behind her head in frustration. This had been so easy a month ago. All she had to do was touch a tree to make it come back to life, but now she couldn't find where a couple of books belong in a library? What was wrong with her?

"Maybe we should pick this up tomorrow," said Tutor, putting a hand on her shoulder. "You look tired."

DG gave him a "ungh" as a response and shuffled out the library with her hands cradling her neck and her head up to the ceiling.

To be quite honest, she _was_ tired. Tired of being here. She'd had nothing to do while she was in any of the castles her family owned. At least in Kansas, she'd had a job. She'd be willing to suffer through fifty travel storms, if she could have something to do.

With not a single breeze, DG made her way to the garden on the roof to look over Central City. She felt a little like Batman from this position. Looking over the edge to her home, not particularly belonging to it, but still feeling the need to protect it.

But she also had to protect her sister. Azkadellia's name had taken on a bad connotation for the residents of the OZ, and there were still a few who refused to believe that the witch possessed her. According to them, the possession was just a cover up for a princess gone power hungry.

"If only it were that simple," DG thought as a dull pain throbbed in her heart. The memory of letting Azkadellia go was one she wished she had never let happen. Though the memories from her childhood were rare, all of them caused some sort of pain; even the ones with Az before the cave. She just couldn't help wondering who her sister would have been if she had not fallen….

The sudden darkening of the clouds pulled DG out of her reverie. She looked up and saw that the nearly the whole sky was covered in clouds. She looked out over Central City to find a black column shooting out from the woodland not so far from the city gates. Then the wind kicked up. DG's hair couldn't decide which way to go so it whipped around her head, and the potted plants began to the ground, smattering the ceramic into a thousand pieces. Then came the whispers. The slimy, sniveling voice seemed to be carried on the wind. It only said one thing: we're here.

Only the sharp pain on her upper arm told her that she had somehow been hurt by this disembodied voice, but she couldn't move. She was fixated by the column of dark magic coming ever closer to the city, the castle, her family. She felt a tug on her arm and turned around to see Wyatt Cain trying desperately to drag her inside the castle.

"C'mon!" he shouted over the howling of the wind. She noticed that a shard of the ceramic carried by the wind happened to be heading toward his back at break-neck speed.

"Duck!" she shouted back, and pushed his head down, her own head following after him.

They started the walk back to the safety of inside hunched, and as the wind blew harder, they were virtually crawling back to the door. The wind, it seemed, was trying to push them off of the roof by any means necessary, and as soon as they reached the threshold and tried to close the door, the wind seemed to kick up another notch. It took their combined strength to finally get the door shut and locked, and they both slid down the door with their backs pressed against it.

"What…was that?"


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I've noticed others doing this and I assume that if I don't put it the feds will break my door down at 3:30 AM. I did not create Tin Man. There. I said it. Happy?

Candace sat, legs crossed, on a couch (whose seventies upholstery and sparse stuffing provided less than comfort for her fraying nerves), and flipped through the TV channels and eyed the clock on the top of the cable box.

"It's one forty-five. In the morning. And she's still not here," she called out, not expecting her brother to answer.

"And your point is…what?" Benjamin shouted back.

"My point is she said she'd be here at twelve!" Candace flipped off the television set and let her head flop back on the headrest.

"She's only going to turn eighteen once. Let her have her fun." She could barely hear him over what suspiciously sounded like running water.

"It's not legal for her to have fun yet. At least not with that boy." No answer, but more water. "What are you doing up there anyway? You haven't been down since dinner and that was, oh-say, seven o'clock?"

She would have excused the water as a shower, if only Ben hadn't been in the bathroom for six hours. She uncrossed her legs and took the stairs two at a time. She knew she was overreacting, but she was near an exploding point and she needed something small to let her anger sizzle out.

God had granted Candace with a short fuse and little patience. Cut her off in traffic, and you'll be hearing the swears no twenty year old girl should be shouting in your car. Her small tolerance seemed only to stem from her siblings; her sister reminding her to have fun for once, and her brother to "just chill, little sister". What hippies.

There were three of them. Benjamin, the oldest, was the artistic one. In his childhood, he would create masterpieces in the mud at preschool. When it rained and the water washed away his creation, he would just shrug his little three-year-old shoulders and walk away as if he had more important things to do than cry over the death of his mud art. Now twenty-two, Ben had moved from mud to paint and is hoping to make a name for himself. Not too hard, though. That could harsh his mellow. Or whatever he says.

Candace, the middle child, was the complete opposite of each other. An epic battle between fire and water couldn't beat their constant fights. He knew how to get Candace reeling, and she would turn on her heel and leave whatever building they happened to be in at that moment. She knew restraint. She knew that physically or verbally hurting her brother wouldn't help her. She needed him. She needed Evie.

Evelyn, the youngest, was like a little bouncing ball of joy. It was aggravating. No one could be _that_ happy, _all_ the time. This along with her complete disregard for prudence, reality, or, more recently, time management often drove Candace to near insanity. The girl seemed to never to quit. Long after all of us are gone. She would probably still be bouncing around in her little hover chair.

Candace yanked the bathroom door open so hard she nearly pulled off the knob.

"_What_ are you _doing_ in here?" she said as she noticed oil paints and a strange, blue something on a piece of canvas.

Then she saw it. Her jaw fell so hard is nearly unhinged itself. There, standing before her in all his glory, was her brother. Now with blue hair. Not hair so black, it looked blue. We're talking win-a-competition-against-little-boy-blue blue.

"So, what do you think?" He said turning his head from side to side trying to give her every angle.

"I think…it's very, very…blue," she said not taking her eyes off of his hair. She'd seen her brother dye his hair before. The boy had been every shade of blonde and brunette. But not _blue_.

"Yeah!" Ben just shouted back as he check it out for himself in the mirror.

"And I assume this is your tribute to it?" she asked, pointing to his painting.

"Yeah!" he said again.

"And I assume you couldn't find a shade of normal hair color you haven't tried yet?"

"No, I figured this would express who I really am."

"Which is…?" Candace felt confused at such a shade.

"I don't know yet," he said with small hesitance.

"So let me get this straight," uh oh. He's in trouble. "You _chose_ to look like a blue raspberry Jolly Rancher because you think it expresses who you really are, but you really don't _know_ who you are, so technically, you just dyed your hair blue just to dye your hair blue!"

"Why are you getting so mad? It's not like it has anything to do with you," he said as he shrugged.

There it was. The apathetic shrug. He's in big trouble now.

"Nothing to do with me? How do you expect to get a job? Not many businesses hire people with _blue_ hair. _We're_ supposed to be paying the bills around here! I can't be a full-time student _and_ a full-time employee! I need you to-" she was cut short by the sound of the front screen door closing and frantic feet climbing the stairs and the sound of Evie's door slamming.

A pause, then a quick glance at one another was all the two needed to set their plan into motion. They always knew little Evie would have her heart broken one day, and they were prepared for it. Since she was little, both Ben and Candace felt an obligation to protect their sister, and she was often the only reason they got along.

Candace made her way to the bedroom at the end of the hall and put her ear to it. Hearing stifled sobs she asked, "Evie, are you alright?"

"Yes."

"Let me in so we can talk."

"I don't want to talk."

"Ben's making you hot chocolate," Candace cooed through the door. That was all it would take to get her from her room. Their mom's old hot chocolate recipe could get anything out of any of them.

Evie hesitantly opened her door, and Candace wrapped her arms around the teen's shoulders. They walked down the stairs to the kitchen where Ben had just started to pour the hot concoction into three separate mugs. Candace sat Evie down in her chair and sat across from her in what used to be their father's chair. Ben handed each of the girls a mug before taking his own and began blowing on it.

They knew that whatever had happened had been bad to have her so distressed. They also knew it would take a lot of prodding to get it out of her. If any boy as so much looked at her the wrong way, Candace would have walked over fire barefoot just to throttle him. Ben would be there to hold her back and calmly tell the accused what kind of scum he really is. Ben really had a way with words, and the hormone-driven boy would end up slumped in the corner as if Candace had had a chance to hammer his head in.

"Evie, did someone hurt you?" Candace started.

Evie's terrified eyes came up to hers then Ben's. "No. I hurt them."


	3. Chapter 3

"What…was that?" she heard Cain say between breaths. He hadn't noticed DG turning away from him and grabbing at her upper arm. With the lack of adrenaline, the sharp pain that she had felt on the rooftop came back with full force. DG had a pretty good tolerance for pain, but this was beyond the realm of anything she'd felt before. Her mind began to go hazy on the edges.

"You alright?" Cain asked, worry evident in his voice. He rolled her over to face him to find a six-inch gash on her arm and her eyes going cloudy. "C'mon. I need to get you to your mother."

With that she felt herself being scooped into his arms and carried away to a destination unknown to her, the pain beginning to race up to her shoulder and down to her fingers all the while. She let her eyes flutter closed and her head lean on the Tin Man's chest. She knew that he was still uncomfortable with touching, but she was just so tired….

"DG, my angel, wake up," said the voice the plagued her dreams not so long ago seemed to be at it again, except this time it sounded very, very scared and very, very close.

DG let her eyes flutter open for a moment, but then her lids seemed to close of their own accord. She felt a hand land delicately on her cheek and bid her lids to open again. She successfully willed them to stay open this time, but soon herself spinning in an intense case of vertigo. He hands searched for purchase only to find…wood? She turned her head to the side to find herself lying on a desk. The skirts of her mother's dress covered up most of the room from her view, but she could see that she was in her mother's office, lying on her mother's desk. Pain shot through her arm once more and the memories of the wind and voice crashed into her like they were on a speed test and her brain was the wall. She sat up with the aid of Ahamo's arm for support. Only then did she look around at the multitude of anxious faces peering at her from around the room.

"What happened?" She couldn't find anything else to say. The faces around the room glanced at each other as if silently wishing she hadn't asked. They all knew very well how headstrong DG could be.

"We were attacked," DG turned her eyes to her mother, "by dark magic much stronger than that of the witch's." Everyone knew which witch because her memory was so freshly burned into his or her brain.

"How many evil witches can there be? Me and Az can take care of her."

"This one wasn't a witch," Glitch piped from a seat near a table and a stack of books.

This seemed to be the information everyone was waiting for as they all turned their heads to him. It seemed as though Glitch was having a thorough Ambrose moment as he quickly translated and simplified the Ancient text in his hands.

"With the evidence we have of the wind and what trying to heal DG's arm did to our friend, Raw, I believe I can say we have hit a snag in the reestablishment of the OZ…the reestablishment of the OZ…the reestablishment of the OZ…the reestablishment of the OZ…. Cain pushed himself off the wall he had been leaning on and shook Glitch's shoulder to get him to stop glitching.

"What happened to Raw?" DG asked, searching the room for any sign of his furry attire and kind eyes.

"When he tried to heal you, DG, whatever spell that was placed on your injury ended up taking a few layers of skin off of Raw," he said, almost nonchalantly.

"Wait, what?" She looked down at her arm, then back to Glitch.

"Azkadellia took him to the hospital wing. We didn't want him getting wounded again if the spell rubs off on any victim. You're both going to have to heal the old-fashioned way," Ahamo said from behind her.

She was almost getting whiplash from trying to look at who was speaking to her. The four people she considered to be almost everybody important in her life seemed to be spread about the room, when they had in all actuality been quite close to the desk that was being substituted for a bed at the moment. The spell was warping her depth perception, and the pain was slowly, but steadily, working it way up to her throat. The changes were so subtle, that DG couldn't tell the difference from when she was perfectly spell-free and now. The changes would eventually consume her, but this spell wasn't one to be found in any book that Glitch could read.

"Please continue, Glitch," The Queen said. She had taken name change smoothly, and seemed partially amused by this new version of her old advisor.

"It says here that one who can control any of the four elements is known as an Elemental. There are only four to have ever existed, and that was long ago. They can go either to light or to dark, it's up to the individual Elemental." Glitch continued.

"Well, let's hope the others are on our side," Cain mumbled from his spot against the wall.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Cain?" asked the Queen.

"If that thing has enough power to harm DG from hundreds of miles away, then what could four of them do?"

"This has been the first sighting in thousands of years," quipped Glitch. "And seeing as the last known encounter with the Elementals ended with the supposed extinction of them, it's crucial to point out that we are either dealing with a set of very old or very young people."

"Very old as in they never died, and very young as…." DG's thought process was trying to keep up.

"As in their descendants may not even know what they are. Magic can go unidentified for a very long time, even through generations," Glitch finished.

"We must find the others," the Queen's voice was commanding and worried.

"Wait, we don't even know what—" DG started, but couldn't finish. The searing pain ripped at her entire arm and into her neck as her eyes rolled up into her skull. She felt her father's arm tighten around her shoulders, and her mother place her hands on either side of her face.

"We're here. All you need is to come find us…." The slimy voice was all DG heard before she felt consciousness slip from her.


	4. Chapter 4

"No. I hurt them" wasn't exactly what Candace and Ben had been expecting to come out the girl's lips. They exchanged a quick glance and a silent prayer.

"How did you hurt them, Evie?" Ben asked.

"Well…I…" she managed to sputter out before a fresh wave of tears rolled over her and she put her head on top of her hands on the table. Candace moved closer to her, cautiously putting a hand on her back, hoping that the little touch would give Evie a little comfort. To her surprise, Evie pushed her chair away from the table, out of her reach.

"Evie, what's wrong? We can't help you if you don't tell us what's wrong," Ben's words seemed to help the girl let them in, but she still refused to talk. "Whatever it is, Evie, I'm sure we can help you out. We'll still be here for you."

Evie considered that last bit for a long while, long enough to make the silence go awkward and her siblings' intense stares became more like pleading, and began to tell them what had happened.

"Well my friends took me out to…um…to a dance club. We're all eighteen now so it was legal," she added to appease her sister's quirked eyebrow at the word "club". "Well some of the guys in the group started to get drinks for everybody, and they drank a little too much, I guess." With every word, Candace's vision started to go red.

"Damn it, Evie! You were drinking? What were you thinking? Why didn't you call us? Damn it!" Candace had never intended to let that come out but it did, so there ya go. She wasn't too worried about reprimanding her until she felt Ben's large hand grab around her forearm, saw the warning in his eyes, and she looked at Evie shrinking back in her chair. "Evie, I…."

"I wasn't drinking, okay? _They_ were," well that burst of confidence was certainly unexpected from a girl nearly shaking in terror, "and because one of the guys drinking was the one who had driven us, and wouldn't let the rest of us drive, we were stuck walking." It almost all came out in one word. " Then one of the guys started to get real…touch-feely." At this she glanced at Candace, who was doing her best to not interrupt again. "He started coming on to me, and when I kept telling him no, two of his friends started to egg him on. Eventually he fell on top of me, and I pushed him off wishing that the grass would just swallow him up like quick sand, and then…." Here Evie paused, looking more like a four-year-old than ever before, "and then…it did." Evie whispered as she averted her eyes to the table.

"It…what?" Ben started.

"It sucked his feet down. Then he started moving more 'cause he was scared and then he started to sink faster until someone started to pull him back up."

Candace could see Evie when she was just starting school, cowering in the corner of her room as the fire licked at her little pink furniture. When Evie was scared, this image of her haunted Candace like no poltergeist ever could. She had almost been killed that day. Evie _and _Ben….

"Candace. Candace. HEH-LO, Candace," Ben was literally pulling her up by her underarms. "I need to talk to you. In there." He pointed to the wall. Novice onlookers wouldn't notice, but both Evie and Candace knew that when he started to give vague orders that he was worried and had far too many things running around his mind at once. Sometimes he wouldn't speak. Just point to you, then to some indistinct reference point. Sometimes it's just better to follow him around until he stops, which is exactly what Candace did.

Now came the waiting. Sometimes it stretched for five minutes before the near-man would begin to speak. The recipient of whatever information he was trying to organize in his head just had to wait. Candace waited for seven minutes.

"We have to tell her."

"No, we don't. It could have been just a fluke, or maybe someone slipped something into her drink…." Candace was pacing, her whispers becoming more frantic, the faster she moved.

"Her eyes weren't dilated, and I take her word for it that she wasn't drinking."

"Maybe it was just and illusion or something. You know moon and the shadows and the…." She slumped back into the sofa she inhabited earlier.

"The ground started to _eat_ the boy, Candace. I should probably say Earth, because that's exactly what she is. An Ea—" Candace put a hand over his mouth. Now his hurried whispers were growing louder. When he calmed down she hesitantly lowered her hand. Wow, they'd never been in this situation before. Normally Ben was the one calming Candace down, but seeing as they were both on edge it was time for the tide to turn. Ben was unused to panicking; Candace didn't want his first experience with it to go uncultivated.

"Maybe it's just a one time thing. I mean, it took eighteen years to show up, I don't think it's much of threat now."

"I don't know. _We_ always to slip up now and then, and who knows how much control she has. Candace…" he kneeled in front of her and looked imploringly into her eyes, as if this was the most important thing in the world to him, "…we can't have another accident. We have to tell her."

"Tell me what?" Evie had grown bored alone in the kitchen.

"I told you to stay there," Candace said, silently agreeing with Ben. They couldn't take another accident.

"No. You didn't." She made her way to the couch and plopped down next to Candace. Boy, that girl went through moods fast.

"You aren't…worried about what happened?" Ben sat back on the light wood coffee table, gripping the edge of it until his knuckles were white.

"No, I thought about and I figured it was just me trying to get out of a stupid situation." She said simply. "But what I _am_ worried about is your hair. Blue, Ben?"

"That's enough about my hair, thank you. But Candace and I have to explain something to you."

"Shoot." She kicked off her heels, took out her earrings, and leaned into the puffy couch cushions— if they were going to have a "serious talk", then she was going to be comfortable while doing it, darn it.

"Well the story you told us, about the grass turning into quicksand, we need to tell you something very important about it," Ben started slowly.

Evie raised her eyebrows in a "keep going" fashion.

"About fifteen years ago, your brother and I started, well, started to do some really bizarre stuff," that was it. She was leaving the rest up to Ben.

"Mom and Dad could see that we were different. They encouraged it. You, I guess, were too small to remember any of this." He glanced at Candace. " See, I started to play with water. Well, not play, but, you know, move it. I could make it dance in my hands. That's all I can remember about it, but Candace. Candace can remember everything she could do." He risked another glance at his middle sister, and then returned his eyes to Evie. "Candace could manipulate fire. She had way better control than I ever did, but one day, um, on day she lost control. The house caught on fire, we ran out, and Candace went back to get you, Mom, and Dad." The last glance kept Ben staring at her. There were tears threatening to fall from her eyes. She'd never heard the story told by someone else, and it was hurting. "She couldn't find them, but she came back with you before the fire department came.

"We were dubbed 'the miracle children' on the local news channels, placed in foster care. Somehow we managed to stay together until I turned eighteen and could legally become your guardian. We never told anyone of the incident, stifled out talents, and kept it from you, hoping that the need to tell you should never arise. Well, the need has risen and it seems as if you are very mad with us…."

Evelyn was, indeed, very mad with them. In fact, she was furious. She felt as if she'd been lied to for fifteen years of her life. The parents she'd barely known had died in a fire her _sister_ caused? Her siblings could _control_ things found in nature? _She_ could control things found in nature?

She looked from her brother's eyes to her sister's turned head in rapid succession. She didn't know what to say. She had to say something. _Something_.

"Well, then." She managed. She stood up, grabbed her shoes, and made for the door.

"Evie, come back!" Ben stood, then Candace. A glance sent them sprinting after their sister. They bottle nosed at the door, pushing each other aside.

"You've made enough of a mess," Candace said through clenched teeth. For a boy, he sure had some hips. And he was shoving them out to the side to keep her from exiting, and she had a firm grip on the doorframe above her head.

"Well looks like the peanut gallery pulled itself together enough to be cynical," he spat back.

_Uh oh_. That was when Candace noticed that something wasn't right. Despite being the middle of summer, the field surrounding their home was completely and utterly silent.

"Shhh! Ben!" She put a finger to her mouth.

"What?"

"It's quiet."

"And…?" then realization clicked in. " Ohhhhh. This can't be good."

"EVIE!" They shouted together. Whoever said Candace and Ben wouldn't work well as a team had never met them when Evie was lost.

Candace allowed Ben to go through the door first, and then she propelled herself using the grip she already had on the doorframe. Propelling wasn't such a good idea, as she propelled herself right into Ben's back.

"OW. Jesus, Ben! Why'd you st…. Oh." She said as she followed his eyes to a colossal, black tornado not 500 yards from he house. Evie wasn't far in front of them.

Ben came to his senses the fastest. "RUN!"

They all turned away from the tornado and the house and made for the cellar. The tornado, it seemed, had the same idea, and followed them. Knowing they probably wouldn't make it to safety, Ben grabbed both Candace's and Evie's wrists and held tight. The girls had grabbed each other, completing the circle, as they felt the ground below them give way and they were taken up into the spiraling deathtrap.

A/N: A little aside, this takes place in an alternate reality where an eighteen year old can legally become the guardian of two girls. I just finished midterms and my ability to think coherently seems to have gone out the door. See, I have a door instead of a window in my quaint, little room. I have to say it sucks. * Facepalm *stop complaining. Okay. I hope you enjoyed.


	5. Chapter 5

The light of the double suns brought DG back to consciousness. She felt the warmth on her face, and the softness of the blankets and pillows provided for a princess. She never wanted to get up. This was too comfy. Waking up meant princess lessons, magic lessons, Azkadellia, the Queen, Ahamo, Glitch, Raw, and…Cain. She liked most of them, but today she didn't need to deal with th…_OW_. She had rolled to her left side and the cut pulsated a sting sensation spreading to the tips of her fingers and upper back.

DG finally opened her eyes and found that she was in her room. Not any hospital room, or bed. Her room. Glancing around the room she found a bandaged hand with a sleepy Viewer attached to it. Raw's chin had sunk to his chest and his head was nodding steadily while his whole body lay limp and slouched in a chair to her right.

Not wanting to rouse him, DG attempted to slip off of the left side of the bed, but found such an activity difficult, as there was a sling around her left arm. Instead of carefully sitting up and sliding off of the bed, our princes just kind of flapped her arms and fell backwards off of the bed as soon as she realized she didn't have the use of her other arm. Once she hit the floor she just laid out. Hoping against hope that that certainly just did not happen.

"DG, you down there?" came Raw's voice from above and beyond. Apparently the sound of buttocks hitting hard wood floor wakes people up.

"Maybe. I think I died," she said.

"Not dead yet," Raw laughed as he came around the bed and held out his uninjured hand to DG.

"Hold on then. I may die in the next few minutes."

And he waited those next few minutes with his hand outstretched. "Time for DG to get up. Mother and Father have lots to talk about."

"Talk about…my arm? Or your hand?" she gestured to said hand. "Or the fact that no one seems to know what is going on here? Or that I'm stuck in this palace while something, somewhere is ravaging the O.Z.? OR maybe, just maybe, they'd like to talk about my inability to control my magic, much less have any clue what the magic that seems to be flowing out of my arm is. Or…."

DG didn't know where that came from. She hadn't time in between waking up and falling down to even think such things. She'd rambled on for a good ten minutes on the ground, hands flailing and everything, until her voice finally puttered out. Her rant went from her magic-induced injury to reestablishing the Tin Man system to re-braining Glitch to a safer haven for Viewers to mental psychology for the constituents of the OZ. _Oi, vey._

Raw had looked a good deal less confused than DG felt, but confused nonetheless. He could feel her genuine anger over the things she spoke about, but didn't know where those none-too-good feelings stemmed from. He suspected that she didn't either, from the looks of it—her blue eyes wide with astonishment and eyebrows up to the crown of her head.

"DG should see mother now," he said and quickly pulled her up with the one hand available to him, and whisked her out of her room.

It was the right time to strike, for in surprise mode, DG didn't handle rebellion very well. She let herself be pulled and turned this way and that by Raw without even so much as a heel dug into the ground. She allowed him to push into her mother's office and set her down in a chair near the desk that had once upon a time not that long ago been a very uncomfortable bed while he promptly exited the room.

"DG? My Angel, is everything alright?" The Queen said, standing behind her desk.

Her mother's question brought her back to herself. "Yes. I need to know what happened," she said. Well more like she demanded.

Her mother straightened her back, "Dorothy Gale, you are not to speak to me with such a tone. I am your mother and elder, and it is in your best interest that you remember that."

"I'm _not_ one of your representatives from the guilds, and _I_ won't be talked to in such a tone," DG spat back.

"My Angel, this is not you," the Queen's lavender eyes were filled with horror.

"Of course it's me! It's you who…." DG shook her head to clear it. "I'm sorry." All the fury that had been in her words vanished and all the sorrow she experienced in that moment filled those two little words.

DG's mother, not the Queen of the OZ, made to comfort her daughter, but three raps on the heavy wooden door stopped her.

"Enter," she said, standing not six feet from her daughter, but not daring to take her eyes off of her.

"Your majesties," a pause as the frantic man bowed to each in turn. Neither looked at him, "You are needed in the court."

"Tell them we will be arriving soon."

"But, your majesty…. _Othersiders _have arrived."

The Queen whipped her head quickly around enough to make the grown man jump. "Are you _sure_ they are Othersiders?"

"Now, I mean no disrespect, madam, but they stick out like that pretty tree in the dead Papay Fields."

To this the Queen rolled her eyes. "DG, will you be willing to accompany me to court? I believe it will explain the questions you have."

DG sheepishly nodded, and, eyes downward took her mother's offered elbow and followed her into the main courtroom.

A/N – Look! I'm making an Abbie note. Instead of an Author's Note. 'Cause my name is Abbie. Geddit? No? Anyway. Thank you for reading! If you don't mind telling me what you thought about it, I don't mind putting off my Stats homework. Then again, I never mind putting off Stats homework…. ~*~


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